Now her head was actually hurting, but she was too intimidated to cry out. When the alarm went off and Simon returned, she nearly sobbed with relief. The stuff was washed off, and Nula was once again placed before the mirror while Simon clipped away at her now reddish hair.

‘Um,’ said Nula.

He looked at her expectantly.

‘It’s not blonde,’ she said. So with barely concealed impatience he put some more gunk on her head, and slapped the timer back on.

7

The Charlie Boys had got used to pilfering from cars and then nicking the cars themselves and selling them on. Charlie and his gang also became expert housebreakers. Summers were particularly good for this. People hot in bed upstairs, windows left open downstairs. Perfect.

They were earning very nicely now by criminal means and were starting to think bigger. Charlie had the manor all set up in his favour and they were raking in cash around the restaurants and clubs. Charlie had his boys on the doors, and before long they had the club owners out the door and were taking over. Added to that, they were screwing three or four big houses every week and getting away with it. But soon the word spread, the Old Bill were after them, and they had to go further and further out on the rob, or invite trouble. Charlie was growing bulkier by the day and Terry and Beezer were too big to get in small windows, so they trained up Beezer’s little brother, baby-face Col, for that job.

It was like a holiday jaunt, a return to the old days, the housebreaking. They drove out into the countryside in Terry’s Cortina, where the pickings were a lot better and where their chances of detection were halved thanks to country plod’s relaxed attitude to law enforcement.

Once at their target area, they found a nice big house and sent Col in to knock on the door. The deal was this: if nobody answered, the job was on and Col would be shovelled through a small open window – or they would break one – and then Col would open the front door to let the rest of the troops inside. If someone did answer, then Col would innocently ask for directions and leave the householder in peace.

It was a system that seemed foolproof, and one that they used again and again. They would get in, dump empty boxes out of the boot of the car and into the hallway. Then they would put all the stuff they were robbing into the boxes and exit by the front door.